Startup SEO: How to Get Started on a Limited Budget

If you are a new startup, you may be struggling to build your web presence. And whilst the majority of startups know how important SEO is, most do not properly understand how to develop an SEO strategy. One option is to hire a high quality link building services company to help you, but finding the right one that offers the service at a price you can afford can be just as difficult. So, let’s take a look at some of the things that you can do yourself before hiring in the professionals.

Start with on-oage optimisation.

Your on-page optimisation is just as important as link building, so it’s wise to start with this first. If you ignore it from the get-go, you’ll find that you’re at a big disadvantage, and will have more work to do later. The content on your website should do the job it’s intended to do, and it should be linkable.

Each page needs to target the intent of a single searcher, and it needs to be keyword optimised in such a way as to help visitors find what they are looking for. Each page also needs to be crawler accessible, have a descriptive URL, and contain relevant meta tags. This page on Moz.com describes everything you need to do for on-page SEO.

Set up social media profiles.

The next thing you need to do is build a social media presence. Start with the main sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, and then consider setting up profiles on other relevant networks. Every like, share, retweet, or mention, is referred to as a social signal, and each one of these can help to improve your brand authority, and your search engine ranking. One of the keys to success on social media is consistent sharing. Share your most useful content on your social profiles and your audience will also share them with their followers.

Running social media can be a full time job, so it’s better to work on it for at least one day a week in your infancy, and schedule things to post. Buffer or ManagFlitter can help you schedule your posts whilst you concentrate on your most important tasks everyday.

Most startups have part-time or full-time workers who manage their social communities. You don’t have to hire a social media manager yet. You can get an intern to take care of it in the mean time. You may also want to hire someone to run your social media accounts when you can or when the time is right. You won’t be responsible for just sharing content, you’ll need to answer questions, and relate to your customers as well.

Launch a blog(it’s probably one of your most valuable investments)

Lastly, you should also launch a blog and update it regularly with fresh content. In the beginning, you may just want to write newsworthy posts about the company. But more importantly, you should write industry relevant content as well. Choose blog topics based around keywords, and make sure that everything you write is relevant to your company. You can start to write a minimum of one post each week, but as your business grows, you can increase the number. Google likes websites that are regularly updated, so launching a blog is vital.

Once you have completed the basics, it may be time to hire an SEO company to help you out with link building. Try to choose a local company or someone that you feel comfortable working with. Example, businesses in London could work with search marketing companies in the UK. Need SEO in Sheffield? Visit Click Intelligence rather than an offshore provider. And avoid working with anyone who promises you the top spot on Google – no-one can promise you that. But consistency pays in the end.